Best Sludge Metal Bands

AvAtArA

I know there are many Sludge bands that aren't on the list. Feel free to add some if yours ain't on the list. These are the Sludge bands that I feel are the most noteworthy. Don't agree with the list? Vote for an existing item you think should be ranked higher or if you are a logged in, add a new item for others to vote on or create your own version of this list.

The Top Ten

1Melvins

A unique sound to sludge metal, its almost like really evil grunge music that's really heavy it somehow became metal

cus melvins was in it from the beginning

Melvins & Sabbath. everyone else is just a dumbed down copy.

2Acid Bath

The most unique, innovative and creative band. They have a sound unmatched by any other band; their music captures the essence of darkness and suffering.

After all these years of listening to music, not one band has stuck with me like Acid Bath has. Since discovering them roughly 3 years ago there hasn't been I day I haven't listened to them, and I'm being serious. Their music creates such emotion that it's truly impossible to explain...

Found at an early age, probably just by chance, this band brought me through it all, and their ability to relate with you on a cellular level is unmatched. Dax Riggs either made a deal with the devil, or knows him on a personal level.

3Mastodon

They are just a fantastic band. They have produced such a great variety of music while also maintaining a very distinctive and memorable sound. They simply have a unique tone that people can only strive to emulate. Their music peaked with the album "Crack the Skye" but their new album is still fabulous.

I believe this should be in the top 10 because Mastodon just takes sludge to a whole new level. Their music has the technicality and precession of Northern industrial groups, the heart and soul of Southern groove bands, and that thick sludgy, dirty feel of Western sludge/stoner acts. They're also excellent in concert!

Mastodon is my favorite band...of ALL time. There music completely changed the way I feel about metal. Music of epic proportions and mighty walls of sound fall on you with every track. There also the most mesmerizing band fusing stoner rock progressive metal and sludge. THEY ARE GODS.

[newest]

Um, best band right now!

4Flipper

5Eyehategod

Mastadon is great, but Eyehategod has been doing sludge, amazingly, for ten years longer. Seeing them in the early 90's was mindblowing and groundbreaking.

Eyehategod is rhythmic, filthy, and listenable all at the same time. Their bluesy, sludge/hardcore punk style of music is simply awesome, if you haven't listened to it, do.

In The Name Of Suffering is some of the most masochistic, brutal, almost bluesy sludge ever! Gotta love the pain of it.

6Iron Monkey

It takes a true master of extremity to come up with something that is suffocatingly heavy, yet catchy enough to stay in your head for hours. Under the glacial sludge, filthy crust punk bits, and gleefully hateful lyrics/vocal delivery, there is an undeniable groove (courtesy of drummer Justin Greaves) and a healthy respect for melodic riffing (courtesy of guitarists Dean Berry and James Rushby) that ultimately puts this band above the rest of the sludge mental legions.

Pure, bubbling, oozing sludge. Dixon's screams and bass lines alone are enough to earn them a spot on the list. Pure southern filth.

8Black Label Society

9Crowbar

Heaviest Band ever! Truly awesome songs like Conquering, I Have Failed, Mourn the Illusion, All I had I gave. None Heavier than Crowbar still awesome after 25 years

Nothing thicker. Will never understand why this band does not get more respect. Kirk, Crowbar, and Louisiana mud FTW.

Such an atmosphere of power and destruction, the real godfathers of heavy music and sludge metal

10Neurosis

This is one of the most important bands in the genre and should be on top! Not many bands can make the eerie moods that this band often makes! and not many bands can make you feel the darkness as this band does. One of the most important and most underrated bands in the genre! the best ever!

I'm surprised it's so low! In my opinion they are the biggest bands ever. Their Souls at Zero can br only compared with the so great albums like I, II of Led Zeppelin, Rock for Light of Bad Brains, or Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.

Should be much higher in rank. No one even came close to what they were doing in the mid to late 90's.

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The Contenders

11Black Tusk

I love this band and I love their energy! I can't wait to see them again. Definitely one of my top favorite bands.

12Down

Kind of an all star band but with only three albums they earned their position between the best of the kind. From the southern "swampy" style of the Down II album to the great melodies and heavy guitars of NOLA and Over the under, all the southern and bluesy styles combined with really heavy music and a frontman like no other.

I love Nola. I like Melvin's as well but Eyehategod will be forgotten because of it's small fan base, what a shame.

This band should be number 1 their debut Nola was flawless and down II was a masterpiece also

13Buzzoven

14Kylesa

Kylesa has to be one of the best sludge metal bands of all time. Spiral Shadow and Static Tensions prove that.

I love all these bands but love my Kylesa the best...

Georgia seems to be taking over lately between Savannah and Atlanta...

15High on Fire

Just pure fast tempo heavy sludgyness, love it.

16Alice In Chains

This is one of the first bands that played sludge...yet they are in this place! These guys deserve number 1...there is no other band that can do sludge better than AIC...

17Electric Wizard

Dopethrone and Come My Fanatics are stellar. Electric Wizard captures a great heavy sluggish feel with a lot of distortion, and (at least on Dopethrone album) lots of reverb on the vocals. Very cool. Electric Wizard is considered by many to be one of the heaviest sounding bands within the genre.

Electric Wizard to me is the quintessential sludge metal band. They are also the best ever!

What! Electric wizard is THE stoner metal band!

18Black Sheep Wall

19Cult of Luna

Taken it all to new level!

20Black Flag

21Isis

22Sleep

Because it belongs at the very top with Electric Wizard.

23Demonic Death Judge

A fairly new band from Finland. This band's slow tempo riffs and deep growling will blow your mind.

New band but very awesome!

24Red Fang

25Corrosion of Conformity

Where is Pepper and Co.? Corrosion of Conformity

26Jucifer

Jucifer pleases my listening holes

27Torche

28Love Sex Machine

French Sludge Metal unrelenting and full on heavy

29Blood On the Dance Floor

30Bongzilla

They got so many sick riffs that got a great sound to them

Champagne when I'm thirsty, and...

31The Atlas Moth

32Grief

The most widely copied and imitated of all the original sludge bands. Everybody rips off these guys to this very day and they are hardly ever mentioned. 'I Hate the Human Race' is THE SLUDGE ANTHEM

33Soilent Green

Sewn Mouth Secrets is a master piece...

34Lo-Pan

35Ghost Brigade

36Stressball

37Baroness

The blue record proves that sludge can be brutal and peaceful. Baroness plays insane music and deserves as much credibility as mastodon, if not more, especially since mastodon is moving away from the sludge genre while baroness is only attempting getting better at it.

Definitely one of the best sludge bands out there. They have a foot in so many genres while remaining sludgey and they help out a lot of the smaller sludge bands out there. Amazing, through and through